She stopped, covered with confusion, a look of distress on her lovely face for having allowed herself to say so much.
Mr. Knight looked astonished for a moment, while he earnestly studied her countenance. Then light seemed to dawn upon him suddenly.
"Pardon me," he said, leaning eagerly toward her, "but what you have said has enlightened me regarding something that has puzzled me since the day I first met you. You are the daughter of Abbot Alexander who disappeared so mysteriously from this city several years ago."
"Yes, it is true," Virgie confessed, with bowed head and burning cheeks. "But, oh, Mr. Knight, pray do not allow any one else to suspect my identity if you can avoid it. Put some other name to my books, or put no name at all to them. For my father's sake, I shrink from attracting public attention to his name."
"My dear young friend, I fear you are morbidly sensitive I used to know your father, and I always esteemed him as a noble man—one whose honor was unimpeachable."
"Ah! Then you do not know—"
"Yes, I do know all about that financial earthquake which wrought his ruin and that of many others; but I am sure he was blameless."
"You judge him, then, more kindly than others," Virgie returned, almost weeping to hear her father so warmly defended. "There are few, I fear, who do not believe the very worst of him even now."
"Doubtless that is true," Mr. Knight answered, with a sigh; "but I have always been convinced that that rascally cashier was at the bottom of the wrong. You must pardon me for speaking so plainly. I know that he was a relative, though unworthy the name he bore."
"But all the papers stated that the president and cashier were in league," said Virgie.